Just before entering Singapore Straights, Liping woke me up as she couldn't really tell whether a ship was on a collision course or not. I was wide awake immediately, as just a couple of nights before I had asked a passing ship if they had me on the radar. The answer was positive. He told us that he saw us quite clearly on his starboard side -- when we were actually on his port side. Very bad news. We had our lights on, but apparently nobody ever looks outside any more.
So this time I raced out and saw that we were, indeed, on a collision course and threw the wheel hard to starboard. The ship passed *very* close to us and Liping got so scared that she was shaking uncontrollably.
When it was daylight, we saw that ships lined up all the way to the horizon. The approach to the Panama Canal looks like a deserted backwater in comparison. The good news is that ships in the Straights at least stay in the shipping lanes, whereas they seem to make a point to stay out of them in Indonesian waters. Once we had figured that out, things were comparatively easy.
We anchored outside Nongsa Point Marina, put the dinghy down and checked the place out. For a hundred bucks, we'd be allowed to stay for two weeks, which is unbelievably inexpensive for a 4-star resort/marina. Not only that, the people were always smiling and helpful. Quite a different story to the marina in Bali, which was very expensive indeed. (We anchored way back in the harbour of Benoa.) So we cleaned our water tanks and did all kinds of other work before clearing out for Singapore.
The run across was very easy and when we got close to Angler Point, we called immigration on the VHF, who showed up in a small launch and ordered us to drift while they cleared us in. Later on we called the MPA (harbourmasters office) and were told in no uncertain terms, that we were not allowed to anchor, but that we could put up sail, so that we would reach our destination in daylight.
When we got to Changi Sailing Club, we picked up a mooring and were immediately charmed by the place. After a short walk uphill, you are greeted by tropical vegetation reminding one of a park. Cockatoos, parakeets and myna birds fly all over the place. While skyscraper-city is but a bus-ride away, here one is reminded of rural tranquillity.
"Wait!" I thought. First impressions can often be deceiving, just like tourists all over the world are deceived by the facades that are custom-built just for them. And how can they possibly tell, as they are never really leaving those confines? We met sailors who had spent years in a place without being aware of the most common social problems.
But the feeling never changed. While Singapore undoubtedly has social problems just like any other place in the world, the positive aspect far outweighed anything else. I had had a similar experience when I first moved to Taiwan in 1982. Those days Taiwan had very bad press and I had not looked forward to go there. Instead, I fell in love with the island.
Also, Liping and I noticed many similarities to Taiwan, albeit with a more tropical und multi-cultural flavour. The first thing was that we were kind of adopted by the Chinese members of the club. The manager, Edward, and his good friend Kit were going out of their way to make us feel welcome on the very first day we met and soon introduced us to the rest of the gang. While some are admittedly very well off and don't really represent society as a whole, others are very much in the mainstream and a sizable portion are true blue collar workers. And every one of them tried very hard to include us in everything and be helpful.
Thank you, Changi Sailing Club!
Again, we found out that through pure luck we have ended up at exactly the right place. Most of the members are more into racing and dinghy sailing and we haven't seen a single overseas yachtie here. They mostly pass Singapore by ("Absolutely everything is forbidden in Singapore." -- What media nonsense!) or stay in marinas that cater to the truly rich. As a result the people here are much more curious about our lifestyle than they would otherwise be ("familiarity breeds contempt").
One of the members, Henry, told us that his brother in law was a producer for a local television and asked if it was OK to give him our phone number. Of course it was! So Derek Goh called us a couple of days later and we met with him and Henry to get acquainted. It worked marvellously well and again a few days later the filming for a 30-minute documentary started. Although we had exposure to this kind of stuff before, we had not expected the team to be quite that professional and dedicated.
Later we found out that Derek Goh is one of these rare people who have so much passion for their work, that it has become pretty much their whole life. He'd won prizes and (in his own words) "had moved past the regard for ratings and the like". His aim is to produce GOOD documentaries and later he gave us a few web-links , so that we could watch some of them. They were excellent and both Liping and I were moved to tears. Liping had a very long talk with Derek during one of those barbecue nights, where Derek himself had this amazing tell-tale shimmer in his eyes. That's just how he is and we feel very lucky and are very appreciative to have met him. I take my hat off!
Unfortunately, there is always an end to such things. While we got a 30-day extension to our 14-day landing pass, I was told that I would not get another extension. Very sad, especially as Liping only got a 14-day visa for Malaysia as well. And we had planned on a major refit in Langkawi! Maybe we can get a longer extension there or we will have to try our luck in Phuket. The positive aspect is that things should get less expensive again after Singapore, (especially since there is no bar just a few meters from our mooring ;-).
The documentary will show on the "Tuesday Report" sometime at the end of April 2010 on the all-Mandarin Channel 8 of Mediacorp and I will try to post some links here to Youtube or some such. We'll see. The trip up north will be quite different from our previous trips, as two of the bolts of our port chainplate sheared off and somehow the chainplate got bent outwards. I replaced the bolts, added 4 washers on each and put epoxy and micro-balloons between the hull and the chainplates. We will have to sail extremely carefully until we can effect permanent repairs. Also, because of all the floating drift-nets, we have been advised to keep a sharp lookout and never sail at night. Then there are the strong tidal currents, that make it advisable to anchor when the tide is against you. Boy-oh!
As a result, I bought two more 25-litre jerry cans, so that we now have 520 litres of diesel on board, which means we could run one engine continuously at low revs for about two weeks. But don't fear! We won't turn into "diesel sailors" because of this! As usual, we will be the slowest boat around and we fully expect to enjoy our next stop. As Karl & Libu once said: "We like it everywhere!"
Phone: +6583019317
